No, as I’ve demonstrated the case hinges on property rights and not the value of anything.

“One of the reasons Heartland won’t pursue this is that htey’d have to justify their hoaxes in court. They want to claim a right to make up stuff and claim it as science? They want to claim a right to hoax people about what the science is? When the tobacco people finally got into court, there was no refuge for the hoax arguments. Since many Heartland supporters, and probably principals, are veterans of that fight, I suspect they’ll leave it alone.”

That’s an interesting theory, which is completely irrelevant to Peter Gleick being guilty of mail and wire fraud.

“My bias? I’m biased in favor of groups that do good, and people who perform public service. I think your favoritism toward the seedy and dark actions of Heartland are well displayed here. In legal terms, you have no right to keep hoaxes secret. You have no right to cover your tracks when you are up to no good.”

That’s sounds all good and noble Ed, but again has nothing to do with the law. You haven’t even been able to grasp that I’m not showing any favoritism towards Heartland, I’ve spent time trying to discuss how a specific law applies to this situation, a law that should apply objectively and without bias. At this point I’m not sure if you have any knowledge in the law because you are unable to have an objective discussion in how the law applies.

The issue here is that ethics and integrity are not things that depend on your personal or political bias. Peter Gleick’s actions were both unethical and illegal. That he took those actions against an organization that is sleazy is irrelevant to his actions being unethical and illegal.

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By: Ed Darrell https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/odd-site-to-defend-peter-gleicks-exposing-of-heartlandgate-citing-the-law-that-will-let-him-skate/comment-page-1/#comment-223713
Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:14:51 +0000http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?p=16954#comment-223713I said: “No value can be ascribed to Heartland’s wish to keep its dire, dark secrets. Heartland has no right to hoax people, no right to hoax its donors nor the public. I don’t think this falls under whistleblower statutes, but there’s no harm to Heartland that they didn’t earn.”

I think your feelings against Heartland and your political bias are preventing you from admitting the truth. And Heartland is just another think tank, working to sway opinions, an organization that isn’t well respected. But in legal terms there is no doubt this case meets the criteria of mail and wire fraud.

In other words, you can’t think of any way to value the dirty secrets of Heartland Institute, either.

One of the reasons Heartland won’t pursue this is that htey’d have to justify their hoaxes in court. They want to claim a right to make up stuff and claim it as science? They want to claim a right to hoax people about what the science is? When the tobacco people finally got into court, there was no refuge for the hoax arguments. Since many Heartland supporters, and probably principals, are veterans of that fight, I suspect they’ll leave it alone.

My bias? I’m biased in favor of groups that do good, and people who perform public service. I think your favoritism toward the seedy and dark actions of Heartland are well displayed here. In legal terms, you have no right to keep hoaxes secret. You have no right to cover your tracks when you are up to no good.

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By: JimR https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/odd-site-to-defend-peter-gleicks-exposing-of-heartlandgate-citing-the-law-that-will-let-him-skate/comment-page-1/#comment-223668
Thu, 31 May 2012 22:59:42 +0000http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?p=16954#comment-223668Ed – “Right. And as I have noted, repeatedly, again and again, you’ve not articulated any value to that information. Where is the harm? Clearly there was no gainful use by Gleick — he sacrificed to simply get at the truth.”

Why are you so stuck on value? Do you not understand the legal cases we are discussing? What part of “Confidential information may be considered property for the purposes of §§ 1341 and 1343” do you not understand? As shown in the Martin case the perpetrator of the wire or mail fraud doesn’t have to profit, it is enough to cause harm to the holder of the information. While your political beliefs may cause you to cheer the harm to Heartland, there was harm none the less due to the release of their internal documents.

“No value can be ascribed to Heartland’s wish to keep its dire, dark secrets. Heartland has no right to hoax people, no right to hoax its donors nor the public. I don’t think this falls under whistleblower statutes, but there’s no harm to Heartland that they didn’t earn.”

I think your feelings against Heartland and your political bias are preventing you from admitting the truth. And Heartland is just another think tank, working to sway opinions, an organization that isn’t well respected. But in legal terms there is no doubt this case meets the criteria of mail and wire fraud.

“It’s not like they had any particular methods to keep the information secret. It’s as if they left their secret playbook in the park, and someone found it. The finder has no duty to keep it secret, and exposing the secret is not a crime.”

Are you delusional?? Peter Gleick called Heartland and impersonating a specific board member asked that all documents relating to the board meeting be sent to an E-mail address he had created for this purpose. Peter Gleick obtained the documents through dishonesty and deceit, a situation about as far from leaving their information in a park as one can imagine.

Ed, this is getting a bit absurd. If you are not the kind of man that can admit he is wrong, well so be it. At this point I feel if a case was filed, a guilty verdict reached and upheld by the Supreme Court you would still come up with ridiculous reasons why Peter Gleick did not actually break the law.

“either some articulable harm must befall the holder of the information as a result of the defendant’s activities, or some gainful use must be intended by the person accessing the information, whether or not this use is profitable in the economic sense.”

Right. And as I have noted, repeatedly, again and again, you’ve not articulated any value to that information. Where is the harm? Clearly there was no gainful use by Gleick — he sacrificed to simply get at the truth.

No value can be ascribed to Heartland’s wish to keep its dire, dark secrets. Heartland has no right to hoax people, no right to hoax its donors nor the public. I don’t think this falls under whistleblower statutes, but there’s no harm to Heartland that they didn’t earn. It’s not like they had any particular methods to keep the information secret. It’s as if they left their secret playbook in the park, and someone found it. The finder has no duty to keep it secret, and exposing the secret is not a crime.

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By: JimR https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/odd-site-to-defend-peter-gleicks-exposing-of-heartlandgate-citing-the-law-that-will-let-him-skate/comment-page-1/#comment-223644
Thu, 31 May 2012 20:31:38 +0000http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?p=16954#comment-223644ed – “You keep sputtering that Carpenter applies, but it doesn’t. Heartland is not in the business of regularly publishing its donor lists — as you complained at the start — nor was Dr. Gleick in any form of privity to give him a fiduciary duty to hold Heartland’s information secret.”

You are confusing the issue here. It doesn’t matter that Heartland wasn’t planning to publish it’s donor list and other internal documents. It was their right to have exclusive use of their confidential information. The Court’s decision in Carpenter didn’t rely on it being financial data or it being published. They Court ruled that the defendants defrauded the Journal of their exclusive use of their own confidential information. And while it is obvious that Peter Gleick didn’t have a duty to hold Heartland’s information secret, in fact he had no right to possess the data and could not have possessed the data without impersonating a Heartland board member.

“In Carpenter the information itself was valuable only in terms of how it enables one to move the stock market and make money trading.”

True, but that has nothing to do with the Court’s decisions. The court ruled that it wasn’t the nature of the information that the Journal was defrauded of but that they were defrauded of exclusive use of their information.

“Read the case, and you can see the struggle to get that profit to the reporter from what was essentially an inside trade, under the fraud statute. That was difficult because WSJ lost no money itself.”

No, you are confusing the convictions. The defendants were separately convicted of securities violations for the trading on the information. The fraud conviction that was upheld by the Supreme Court was for defrauding the Journal of exclusive use of their confidential information. It’s right there in black and white.

“In this case, you have to prove that the information has any value at all. You keep saying intangible data can have value — I agree — but in this case, there is no value demonstrated. Nor does Carpenter suggest any value to the information in this case, which was not to be published, and could not be used to trade and make a profit. Heartland has no right to secrecy of the data. No value, no ability for fraud.”

The above paragraph is completely incorrect and contradicts the Court’s ruling in Carpenter. The Carpenter case may never have been prosecuted if the data did not have financial value to someone, however the Court’s ruling on the fraud conviction spelled out specifically that the Journal had been defrauded of their exclusive use of their confidential information.

Take a look at US v Martin where the court of appeals, 1st circuit upheld a wire fraud conviction.

“A. Property Theory
48

Confidential information may be considered property for the purposes of §§ 1341 and 1343. See United States v. Czubinski, 106 F.3d 1069, 1074 (1st Cir. 1997). Where such information is obtained – thus depriving the rightful owner of its property rights – through dishonest or deceitful means, the wire and mail fraud statutes may be violated. See id. However, mere access to the confidential information is insufficient; rather, “either some articulable harm must befall the holder of the information as a result of the defendant’s activities, or some gainful use must be intended by the person accessing the information, whether or not this use is profitable in the economic sense.” Id. In other words, for Martin’s convictions to stand under this prong of the wire and mail fraud statutes, sufficient evidence must exist for a reasonable jury to find that Martin knowingly and willingly participated in a scheme to defraud IDEXX of confidential information or other property via false pretenses, and in so doing either harmed IDEXX or intended to use the information for his own gain.”

You can see the the mail and wire fraud statutes are not limited to financial gains by the perpetrator but also includes falsely obtaining information thereby doing harm to the victim.

Your entire argument is based on your narrow view of “property” and the incorrect assumption that Gleick would have to profit financially from the scheme for it to be fraud. This is not true.

Sure, you’ve explained it and your explanations have been wrong. I’ve even provided quotations from the Supreme Court ruling which in no way could be construed to mean ONLY financial data and ONLY because it could be used to used for financial gain.

You mistake quoting from a decision for actually dealing with the issue. I’ve distinguished Carpenter from the facts in this case. You keep sputtering that Carpenter applies, but it doesn’t. Heartland is not in the business of regularly publishing its donor lists — as you complained at the start — nor was Dr. Gleick in any form of privity to give him a fiduciary duty to hold Heartland’s information secret.

In Carpenter the information itself was valuable only in terms of how it enables one to move the stock market and make money trading. Read the case, and you can see the struggle to get that profit to the reporter from what was essentially an inside trade, under the fraud statute. That was difficult because WSJ lost no money itself.

In this case, you have to prove that the information has any value at all. You keep saying intangible data can have value — I agree — but in this case, there is no value demonstrated. Nor does Carpenter suggest any value to the information in this case, which was not to be published, and could not be used to trade and make a profit. Heartland has no right to secrecy of the data. No value, no ability for fraud.

But then there are the elements of wire fraud. You’d have to meet all four. You have shown no intent on the part of Gleick to purloin data for profit, and if the data have no value, you never could. But if you could, you’d still have the intent problem.

What you seem to be missing is that the Carpenter defendants were convicted of several charges and the Court ruled that the fraud charges hinged on defrauding the Journal of their exclusive rights to their confidential data. Their ruling doesn’t hinge on it being financial data or the defendants profiting from the fraud.

Yes, it does.

The court ruled “it being sufficient that the Journal has been deprived of its important right to exclusive use of the information prior to disclosing it to the public.” Did you even read Carpenter? If so how could you interpret this to mean the Journal only has exclusive right to their confidential information ONLY if was financial data???

The question was whether it could be called fraud if the WSJ lost nothing. Read the case.

There was no question about the value of the data.

But Heartland is not arguing it has a right to release its data at a set publication time. They planned never to release it. Carpenter, which deals with WHEN the data are published and used, does not apply to this case at all.

Your entire argument is based on your narrow definition of property and the Supreme Court in Carpenter made clear that confidential information is property and depriving the owner of the information exclusive use is fraud.

No, my argument is based on the elements of fraud, and wire fraud, which are absent in this case. To make it a fraud case, you MUST HAVE all four elements. My argument is based on the intent — there was no intention to defraud. (You seem to think fraud means “trick out of,” but it doesn’t; fraud applies to stuff that has value of itself. You can’t “defraud” a witness into making a confession of a crime, for example — but that seems to be the definition you’re working on.) Gleick was seeing the truth, without intention of making a personal profit from the information. That’s not fraud. He lacks the necessary intent to make this a criminal fraud case.

Is there any evidence that Heartland has dropped claims that a crime has been committed? Or are you just jumping to this conclusion because charges have not been filed?

They’ve stopped demanding action. Criminal action must be filed by criminal authorities, not by Heartland.

I personally think this case is more likely to end up in civil court than criminal court, but absence of charges does not mean a crime has not been committed.

Okay, so tell us what the civil case is. There was no contract. There is no agreement. A tort? What tort do you claim?

“Yes, the information has value — but that’s only one part of one of the four elements of wire fraud; you gotta have all four elements, and the first element, Gleick’s intent to defraud another out of money, is wholly missing.”

You think a fraud count depends on Gleick having anything to do with money??

Heartland lost its ability to lie to people, perhaps. What’s the value of that? $0.00

In any case, Gleick lacked any criminal intent. So regardless the value of the information to Heartland, there is no intent.

After all these posts talking about how fraud relates to money and property and the definition of property as shown by the Supreme Court you still want to frame it in terms of money?

Yes, that’s how fraud is framed in law.

In this case it was Peter Gleick’s intent to defraud Heartland out of “its important right to exclusive use of the information”. And that is what occurred.

You’re purloining the language from the Carpenter case, which involved a reporter trading on stock information he got in the course of his employment by the Wall Street Journal, which information was not his, and which trades were arguably illegal as insider trading, and which information was to be sold by the WSJ.

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By: JimR https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/odd-site-to-defend-peter-gleicks-exposing-of-heartlandgate-citing-the-law-that-will-let-him-skate/comment-page-1/#comment-223551
Thu, 31 May 2012 07:36:26 +0000http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?p=16954#comment-223551James “Jim..something has to have tangible value for it to be insider trading and fraud.”

Not according to the Supreme Court in Carpenter who ruled “its intangible nature does not make it any less “property” protected by the mail and wire fraud statutes.” That seems pretty clear doesn’t it?

“Just because it made Heartland look bad doesn’t count.”

That is a factor in the crime. Peter Gleick’s intent was to expose Heartland by turning over the confidential documents he obtained through fraudulent means (including 1 fake document) and send it out to the media and environmental friends with media outlets to be made public and put pressure on Heartland. Gleick didn’t stand to benefit financially, he intended to benefit by damaging Heartland as a continuation of his battles with fellow Forbes columnist and Heartland fellow James Taylor.

“Besides..Heartland seems quite capable of making itself look bad.”

They sure do. The billboard last month got attention but everyone thought it was a stupid idea. And as Gleick revealed Heartland is a relatively small organization with a small budget and not even funded by big oil.

“If you don’t understand the law, Jim, then shut up. ”

In this one example I’m doing pretty well. Right now I’m just waiting to see if Ed can overcome his bias and look at this objectively since he’s wrong. I’m not a Republican or a Democrat and as shown here the bias that comes with such strong political beliefs can overcome one’s ability to be dispassionate and objective in matters that have a political component.

“THe law that would apply to Mr. Gleick is whistleblower protection, imo.”

Actually whistle blower protection would apply to a real insider who released documents of wrongdoing. In this case Peter Gleick impersonated a Heartland board member to falsely obtain the documents then E-mail them using the name Heartland Insider. Also the released documents are not evidence of a crime so if it was an insider there would be no whistle blower protection.

“So the real question is why are you trying to defend Heartland’s apparent criminal actions?”

I came here wondering why Ed wrote a post saying Gleick could not have committed mail or wire fraud when the case (Carpenter) that showed it could was discussed at length on what Ed called an “Odd site to defend Peter Gleick”. If I’m wrong hopefully Ed will be able to show me, however I suspect he’ll continue to stick to his arguments about value, be unable to provide any case law supporting him and continue to ignore the Supreme Court ruling which lays it out in plain language.

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By: James Kessler https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/odd-site-to-defend-peter-gleicks-exposing-of-heartlandgate-citing-the-law-that-will-let-him-skate/comment-page-1/#comment-223543
Thu, 31 May 2012 06:09:45 +0000http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?p=16954#comment-223543So since I assume JimR is going to vote republican and that would diminish the intangible value of the United States being seen as a sane and responsible nation does that mean I can sue him for fraud?

Jim..something has to have tangible value for it to be insider trading and fraud. Just because it made Heartland look bad doesn’t count. Besides..Heartland seems quite capable of making itself look bad.

If you don’t understand the law, Jim, then shut up. THe law that would apply to Mr. Gleick is whistleblower protection, imo. So the real question is why are you trying to defend Heartland’s apparent criminal actions?

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By: JimR https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/odd-site-to-defend-peter-gleicks-exposing-of-heartlandgate-citing-the-law-that-will-let-him-skate/comment-page-1/#comment-223523
Thu, 31 May 2012 03:36:53 +0000http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?p=16954#comment-223523“I’ve already explained to you how to distinguish the cases. Carpenter squirreled in ONLY because it was financial data, and ONLY because it could be used (and was used) to trade on stocks — insider trading.”

Sure, you’ve explained it and your explanations have been wrong. I’ve even provided quotations from the Supreme Court ruling which in no way could be construed to mean ONLY financial data and ONLY because it could be used to used for financial gain.

What you seem to be missing is that the Carpenter defendants were convicted of several charges and the Court ruled that the fraud charges hinged on defrauding the Journal of their exclusive rights to their confidential data. Their ruling doesn’t hinge on it being financial data or the defendants profiting from the fraud. The court ruled “it being sufficient that the Journal has been deprived of its important right to exclusive use of the information prior to disclosing it to the public.” Did you even read Carpenter? If so how could you interpret this to mean the Journal only has exclusive right to their confidential information ONLY if was financial data???

Your entire argument is based on your narrow definition of property and the Supreme Court in Carpenter made clear that confidential information is property and depriving the owner of the information exclusive use is fraud.

“Can you explain why even Heartland has dropped claims that a crime was committed?”

Is there any evidence that Heartland has dropped claims that a crime has been committed? Or are you just jumping to this conclusion because charges have not been filed? I personally think this case is more likely to end up in civil court than criminal court, but absence of charges does not mean a crime has not been committed.

“Yes, the information has value — but that’s only one part of one of the four elements of wire fraud; you gotta have all four elements, and the first element, Gleick’s intent to defraud another out of money, is wholly missing.”

You think a fraud count depends on Gleick having anything to do with money?? After all these posts talking about how fraud relates to money and property and the definition of property as shown by the Supreme Court you still want to frame it in terms of money?

In this case it was Peter Gleick’s intent to defraud Heartland out of “its important right to exclusive use of the information”. And that is what occurred.

I’ve already explained to you how to distinguish the cases. Carpenter squirreled in ONLY because it was financial data, and ONLY because it could be used (and was used) to trade on stocks — insider trading.

So, can you show us how Dr. Gleick was supposed to profit from his actions? Without such a showing, there is no intent to fraud (you’ve never addressed the intent issue well — you keep harping that the information is valuable; to make it a crime, there must be criminal intent, or scienter, and there is none in Gleick’s case).

Show us the cases where people were convicted of fraud without intent to defraud. Got any?

Can you explain why even Heartland has dropped claims that a crime was committed? Can you explain why Gleick is still walking around, if he committed such a heinous crime as you claim?

Yes, the information has value — but that’s only one part of one of the four elements of wire fraud; you gotta have all four elements, and the first element, Gleick’s intent to defraud another out of money, is wholly missing.

This won’t even go to a grand jury on the information we’ve got. The elements of the crime do not exist.